Questões de Concurso Sobre orações condicionais | conditional clauses em inglês

NO MAN'S LAND

Mystery of world's only stretch of unclaimed land with NO laws that farmer tried to seize to make daughter a princess

Hidden deep in the African desert lies one of the strangest pieces of land on Earth — not for its beauty, wealth, or strategic value, but because no country wants it.

Bir Tawil is a 2,060-square-kilometre patch of barren desert between Egypt and Sudan, which remains an unusual geopolitical anomaly after decades of being unclaimed.

Those daring to go there face a tough journey, driving through remote desert roads past relics of gold mines and, at times, crossing paths with armed gangs and bandits.

Bir Tawil has long been a quirky favourite for small, often tongue-in-cheek, self-declared "countries" - usually founded by ordinary people across the globe.

With no laws, the land has even drawn would-be "kings," including a US dad who trekked there to fulfil his young daughter's wish of becoming a princess.

Jeremiah Heaton, a Virginia farmer, planted a flag and declared Bir Tawil the "Kingdom of North Sudan" so that his daughter Emily could have a royal title. While the move had no legal bearing, it sparked global interest and debate over land claims and the nature of sovereignty. 

As the dad tells it, Emily had casually asked if she could be a princess, and Heaton, wanting to make her dream come true, started looking for a way to make that happen. While most parents might have gently explained the impracticality of such a request, Heaton took it as a challenge. He began researching unclaimed land where he could theoretically establish a kingdom for Emily, at the time aged six.

In June 2014, Heaton headed to northeastern Africa, reaching Bir Tawil after a challenging journey through the desert. With a homemade blue flag bearing a crown symbol and the name "Heaton," he ceremoniously planted it in the sand, declaring Bir Tawil the "Kingdom of North Sudan" and himself its king. He immediately proclaimed Emily to be a princess, therefore "granting" her the royal title she had wished for.

In 2017, Suyash Dixit, an IT entrepreneur from Indore, India, also claimed Bir Tawil as his own, naming it the "Kingdom of Dixit." After a challenging journey across the desert, he planted a flag, declared himself king, and even "appointed" his father as prime minister. He posted his claim and experience on social media, where it garnered significant attention and sparked a wave of jokes and memes.

There are rumours, though largely unsubstantiated, that Bir Tawil contains hidden gold deposits.

While Egypt and Sudan have both had ancient ties to gold mining, particularly in the Nubian Desert, Bir Tawil itself is rarely studied or mined. These rumours, however, have attracted a few treasure hunters and adventurers over the years, hoping to uncover hidden riches in the desert.

Some have even joked about Bir Tawil as a potential "backup homeland" for populations affected by natural disasters. While obviously impractical, the idea underscores the paradox of unclaimed land in a time when territorial disputes are common.

Despite several stunts and theories, Bir Tawil remains unclaimed due to a unique border dispute between Egypt and Sudan.

The journey to Bir Tawil is lengthy and can take anywhere from two days to a week, depending on the starting point, route, and conditions. Due to its isolation and extreme desert environment, the journey requires careful planning, local knowledge, and permission from authorities in Egypt or Sudan.

Most travellers begin in Aswan, Egypt, or Khartoum, Sudan, as these are the nearest large cities with transportation infrastructure. From Aswan, the trip typically involves a long desert drive heading southward toward the Egypt-Sudan border.

Both countries monitor the border area closely, with visitors needing permits and a good guide familiar with the region. Egypt, in particular, restricts movement near the border, especially in sensitive zones close to the Hala'ib Triangle.

The trip to Bir Tawil from either Egypt or Sudan covers hundreds of kilometres across remote, rugged desert terrain. Explorers often follow dirt tracks used by nomadic tribes, miners, or military patrols, though few roads are mapped or maintained. The drive can take days and usually involves off-road vehicles capable of handling deep sand and rough trails.

There are no towns, water sources, or services along the way, so travellers must bring ample water, food, fuel, and spare parts. And to make matters worse, armed gangs, smugglers, and bandits often prey upon those venturing in the desert, particularly along less-monitored routes.

The origins of this unclaimed desert stretch back to British colonial rule in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when overlapping boundary lines inadvertently left Bir Tawil in a legal limbo.

In 1899, while both Egypt and Sudan were under British administration, a formal border was established along the 22nd parallel north. This placed Bir Tawil, an arid and resource-poor patch of desert, in Egyptian territory, while a more valuable area, the Hala'ib Triangle, was assigned to Sudan.

But in 1902, the British changed the boundary to fit the local tribes' movements, putting Bir Tawil in Sudan instead and giving Egypt control over the fertile Hala'ib Triangle.

When Egypt and Sudan became independent, each country wanted the Hala'ib Triangle because it has good land and access to the Red Sea.

Egypt claims it based on the 1899 line, while Sudan uses the 1902 line to support its claim. Bir Tawil, a barren desert with no resources, has no value to either country.

To claim the Hala'ib Triangle, each country must reject Bir Tawil — because they can't claim both under their chosen boundary line. So by claiming Hala'ib, they essentially "give away" Bir Tawil, leaving it unwanted.

The territory is therefore unclaimed because Egypt and Sudan only want the valuable land next to it, not Bir Tawil itself.

For now, Bir Tawil endures as a strange relic of colonial history and an unlikely symbol of modern-day geopolitics — a land still ungoverned and, in all likelihood, destined to remain unclaimed.

Source:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/30658172/bir-tawil-land-that-bel ongs-to-no-nation/ (adapted)

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/30658172/bir-tawil-land-that-belongs-to-no-nation/

The Reasons Why We Dance

1. As a choreographer, I get asked to share my opinion about a myriad of dance-related
2. topics, from the practical, like “How can dance help you get in shape?” to the existential, like “Is
3. my dancing a projection of my self-image?”. But the question I think matters most is: why do
4. people dance? What is about moving our bodies to a song we love that is so joyfully Pavlovian?
5. Why do we watch videos and take lessons on something that could be labeled as trivial? Why do
6. we love it so?
7. There are the obvious answers. We dance for physical fitness, mental clarity, emotional
8. stability, and other such pluses. However, all these benefits could be attained by other means –
9. though I confess I have yet to find a better alternative than a great “cha cha”* to lift both one’s
10. heart rate and spirits. There must be something glorious about dancing that is more than just
11. intangible. We cannot seem to explain it, yet we all know it so well that we do not hesitate to
12. tap our feet to a Gershwin melody or pulse with the percussion of a samba rhythm.
13. Perhaps dance is the way we express ourselves when words are insufficient. The joy we
14. feel over newfound love, the determination we have in the face of great sorrow or adversity, the
15. passionate fire of our youth, and the peacefulness of our softer and more graceful years – maybe
16. they are never expressed more fully than through a waltz, or a tango, or a jive. We all want to
17. be understood, and if we could truly speak the words that describe our feelings, how deep and
18. powerful they would surely be. But alas, those words never seem to come to us just right. Maybe
19. dance is simply a translator for the human heart.
20. Perhaps dance is the medium through which we show the world who we truly are and who
21. we can be. All of us, if we are honest, believe deep down that we are not ordinary. We know
22. ourselves to be wonderfully unique, with many layers of personality and talent woven in such a
23. way that no one on earth could possibly have our same make-up. We know it. We just do not
24. always know how to prove it. Maybe dance gives us the opportunity. And perhaps dance is how
25. we choose to remember, how we hold on to the past. It is how we relive __ fun-filled days of
26. our youth or __ time we looked into their eyes and knew they were the one. It is our tribute to
27. the heroes of yesterday who jitterbugged like carefree boys and girls, when tomorrow they would
28. march as men and women to defend freedom’s cause. It is the chance to be __ princess again,
29. waiting for __ outstretched hand and the call to __ romance that is graceful, true, and not as
30. forgotten as the cynics say. When we dance, we can remember them all a little better, feel the
31. butterflies once again, and if only for a moment, return to the purest part of our lives when time
32. was of no matter…for we were dancing.
33. Why do we dance? Every answer will be different, and that is as it should be. Perhaps the
34. better question is, “Why would we not?”

*Cha Cha: an energetic modern dance.

(Available in: https://dancewithmeusa.com/why-we-dance-the-reasons/ – text especially adapted for this test).